lost love
by tatty ted
Summary: AU. Perhaps unintentionally, Sarah Evans need for perfection was inherited by her daughter. The same daughter who only wanted her mother to tell her she loved her but never heard it. Now there's nothing, just a dead daughter, a suicide note and Sarah wondering if she could've prevented such a tragedy. - —Sarah/OC, warning for a small description of suicide.


ϟ

* * *

**LOST LOVE**  
_you keep messing with my head_

* * *

She'd got married not long after she'd turned thirty, to a fellow surgeon from St James' but it didn't last long. Four months or so until he decided his assistant was younger, prettier and everything Sarah wasn't.

The divorce was a little hard to deal with and set off her obsessive-compulsive disorder, her need that everything had to be perfect (her life wasn't) After that she went off men and love and marriage, popped the occasional antidepressant and attended CBT to stop her obsessive-compulsive disorder from controlling her entire life.

She met Edwards when she was thirty-five, a week before she turned thirty-six. She was surprised he'd healed her (or rather made her realise things didn't have to be so perfect) He was married and she knew he was off limits but there was something about him, his smile and his charm.

And she fell in love, again.

She discovers he's got a daughter, a young girl who'd happily sit on her desk and rearrange her pencils. A girl who's the spitting image of her father and the more she sees of them, the more she realises she has to end the affair before the little girl gets hurt.

She breaks it off, discovers she's pregnant and her obsessive-compulsive disorder spirals out of control, again.

To this day she doesn't understand why she kept the child, a girl, Helen, born September 16th. She raises her single-handedly whilst wondering if the child should ever know the identity of her father (though Sarah knows the consequences involved, it'll shatter apart a family)

She keeps quiet, for now.

It's clear from an outsider that the older Helen gets; the more Sarah really isn't cut out to be a mother. All Helen wants is a mother to be there when she wakes up and there when she falls asleep, not a parent who spends all their time at work, working, working, working.

They always argue, always about the same stuff because Helen can't seem to understand why her mother spends so much time working, doesn't she love her only child? And Sarah can't seem to understand why Helen's so selfish; can't she see she has to work to keep this roof over their head?

The more Helen's growing up, the more she realising about her mother's behaviour. How her mother has to repeatedly do the same thing over and over before leaving. They become more distant over time Sarah and her only daughter, Helen still mad with her mother for working so much and never really been there when Helen's poorly or she's hurt herself.

It's always an extended relative, an aunt or a cousin she never knew existed, that looked after her whilst her mother worked all the hours under the sun.

Helen hits twelve and just spirals out of control (which in turn sets of Sarah's obsessive-compulsive disorder) Her daughter's never home, never at school, never around. When they discuss it, Helen just screams; "Now you know what it's like you bitch!" and gets a slap around the face.

Sarah wonders why she brought this brat into the world; motherhood wasn't ever in her plans.

One day Sarah arrives home from work to the sound of nothing, just silence. She calls out her daughter's name over and over as she walks up the stairs towards the bedroom. She pushes open the door and falls to her knees when she sees her daughter's lifeless body, swinging by a rope.

There's a piece of paper on the floor.

Two pieces of paper.

No, there's three pieces of paper on the floor, she picks them up and begins to read. (She notices they're not addressed to anybody in particular)

_You expect it all don't you, especially if your parents are as successful as mine (a neurosurgeon and the Dean of Medicine) it isn't as good as I thought it would be, it never made my life any easier despite how successful my parents were. _

_Perfection was everything for my mother you see. She wouldn't admit there was a problem, even when she spent twenty minutes counting how many times the tap dripped before she turned it off. She'd never, ever let me play out either because outside was full of germs and germs made you ill. I still remember one time when she made me go upstairs and wash my hands twenty times until she knew, confidently, the germs were gone. She still denied there was a problem when I questioned it so I grew up thinking it was normal._

_I knew my father, Professor Eddie Lanchester, but I don't think he ever knew me, not really. I never met him face to face and I only recall my memories of him from the photo album that my mother keeps underneath the bed. I remember the way she spoke about him, how her voice broke when she spoke his name and despite been seven, knowing the very mention of my father broke my mother's heart._

_I grew up pretty much alone, spending most nights away from my mother because she was working late or away or some excuse like that. How it was always an extended aunt or cousin who were expected to look after me like they were my mother and father. I don't ever remember it been the two of us, just my mother and I. I actually don't think there was a time when it was just us two._

_I grew up realising everything was about control. My mother needed control in her life in order to justify her actions and be happy. It was normal to count the leaky tap for twenty minutes, to wash your hands twenty times and open and close the door four times. I developed my own rituals when I was old enough to understand what they meant, spending ten minutes switching of the light switch and placing the knives and forks out in a straight line over and over. I believed the more rituals I did in a day, the happier I would become and the more my mother would look me in the eye and tell me she loved me and she was proud of me. (though she never told me she loved me, she refused to say the word love after my father left)_

_One day I realised something and my entire world came crashing down around my feet. I realised rituals didn't lead to happiness; happiness was something that came from within. Repeatedly doing the same action over and over wasn't going to stop bad things from happening nor was it ever going to make my mother look me in the eye and be proud of her only daughter. Rituals were just a front, a meaningless action to make you think you were happy inside when really, you're not and you never were._

_But still I just had to count how many dots were on the wall as I drifted off to sleep._

"Oh Helen," for the first time ever she broke down in tears. Throwing away the paper that contained her daughter's last words she whispered; "I wish you'd known how much I loved you."

Some say that's the reason why Sarah admits herself as an outpatient every week or so. They say the death of her daughter was the catalyst for her breakdown, the reason her obsessive-compulsive disorder spiralled and she was sectioned. Others say it's a myth, that the death of her only child didn't do anything to a woman so cold. Sarah Evans knows the truth; Sarah knows she neglected the one thing that was everything to her and now her daughter, her beautiful, intelligent daughter was gone.

And that's why Sarah continues with her daily rituals, to achieve perfection because the perfection she achieved, she lost.

* * *

**jottings** / I'm uneducated on obsessive-compulsive disorder so I apologise if its wrong.  
completely make believe, if you like it enough to favourite, please leave a review:3


End file.
